


one hand, one heart

by diwata



Series: the eleventh hour [1]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Backstory, Bisexual Legend Tina Goldstein, Canon Compliant, Canon Jewish Character, Character Study, F/F, F/M, Gen, Jewish Goldstein sisters, Light Angst, Non-Linear Narrative, Slow Burn, for now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 21:07:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10999002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diwata/pseuds/diwata
Summary: “I don’t think it would be possible, Miss Goldstein,” he whispers against the back of her hand, “For… for anyone to ever, ever forget you.”Tina remembers the war.





	one hand, one heart

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written fanfic in four years, but I fell in love with Tina and Katherine Waterston, so here goes.

She knocks on the wooden door three times - she can hear the thoughts through the frame, busy and bemused. _ The kids aren’t supposed to get here ‘til next Sunday _ , a woman thinks. Oh, not a woman, but  _ the _ woman thinks. The brunette opens the door and drops her teacup, the pretty white china shattering. She smiles in response and throws her arms around her neck. “It’s me,” she says. The woman looks at her and thinks,  _ Oh, it’s you, of course it’s you, I’ve been waiting all these years for you.  _ An image of a pebble sinking into a dirty river occurs to her as she’s swept into another embrace. Their husbands look on.

* * *

It rains the day Tina loses her sister. MACUSA takes her into a room with no windows, but Tina’s able to watch on from the tinted glass screen. She watches them wipe every childhood memory, every memory of magic from her and Jacob. Tina cries, but Queenie’s beautiful face only watches the screen blankly, gazing upon her lovely reflection. Queenie and Jacob hold hands the entire time, their silver bands shining at her through the looking glass.  _ At least she’s not alone,  _ Tina thinks.  _ At least she chose this _ .

“Won’t you just look at me?” Tina screams. They have to restrain her. Queenie’s blank expression is barely recognizable through her tears. Beside her, Newt sniffles pathetically. Beside him, Theseus is completely still, mouth straight, hands folded behind his back.

“Please,” Tina whispers. Queenie, as if hearing her, grasps the locket. Tina smiles, sobs still wracking her body. Newt wraps his long arms around her from behind and cries into her neck.

_ She chose this. She chose this. _

No matter how many times Tina recites the mantra in her head, she can never believe it. “She chose this,” Newt says to her some time after Theseus leaves. Tina nods in agreement, then, and kisses him fully on the mouth.

* * *

As she floats in and out of consciousness, Tina dreams of Queenie. She finds herself daydreaming more often than not, something uncharacteristic of the staunch career girl whose feet once were so pragmatically planted to the ground. One night she wakes up and sees a mop of curly golden hair at her bedside, smiling at her with rosy, dimpled cheeks. The flush of her complexion matches her blush-colored nightgown, its sleeves frayed and greying at the ends. Queenie had thrown a fit when Tina tried to wash it because of the way mama’s scent clung to the fabric. Little Queenie regards her now, wraps her fist around Tina’s index finger and grins. “Teenie,” the child whispers mischievously, brandishing mama’s locket in her other hand. Tina blinks, feeling for its golden chain around her neck, but her hand only finds the soft skin of her clavicle. Then, suddenly, she remembers: Queenie’s empty bed, the kitchen cupboard, the wars that tore her family apart. The war still raging in her heart and the quiet spaces that her sister left in their room, in the office, and in her mind.

She remembers with clarity now, and little Queenie lets go of her index finger, the reverie shattered. Tina sits up, hesitantly, her heart still fluttering in her chest. She leans over, searching for the chest beneath the bed. This is how she fills the space left by her departure: with a small chest no wider than three feet containing Queenie’s favorite sequined dress, her perfume, and her No-Maj makeup. She’s hesitant at first, but she sprays her wrists with the scent; the smell makes her dizzy. At two in the morning, she walks to the mirror, applies rogue to her lips and cheeks, the smoky black shadow that Queenie loved to her eyelids. She slips on the gown and stares at her reflection. She looks gawky and out of place in her sister’s clothes, in her sister’s makeup, in her sister’s old body. She wants to laugh, but manages a small sob instead.  _ You’re a sad fool, Porpentina _ , she admonishes herself, and there’s no Queenie in her thoughts to quell the sting of her self-criticism.

Tina quietly slips the dress off, letting the delicate fabric fall to the wooden floor. She rubs at her face with the heels of her hands, smearing the heavy pigment. She gazes at her reflection again, at the dark circles around her eyes, the mess on her palms that transferred to her thighs, the ugly scar running diagonally down her torso that continued to her left leg.  _ Cripple,  _ she thinks, remembering the embarrassment she felt those first two terrible weeks, limping to MACUSA with her cane in hand. No one pitied her. They had all lost things in the war, some more than others; she was  _ some _ . 

Sometimes, when she has the strength, Tina finds it in herself to be angry. What else did they need to take from her, what would they need to be satisfied? Sometimes, she thinks, her anger is the only thing keeping her alive, the only thing keeping her human. She resents living this way, in this colorless, endless abyss between life and death. Other times, in times like this, she can only cry.

* * *

Dear Auror Scamander,

Thank you for your correspondence regarding the Leta Lestrange trial. Though sleep evades me most nights, I might be able to rest knowing that the woman who held me in captivity for so many weeks is receiving her due punishment. Send my regards to Newt, I know he must be hurting. Look after him, will you?

Sincerely,

Auror Goldstein

* * *

Tina is a creature of habit. Every Saturday at dawn, she walks over to the East Village and stands outside a No-Maj bakery for hours. Old ladies scold her and tell her to get in line, but she smiles back at them and politely declines - until a day in April, when it’s showering gently and she’s forgotten a hat and an umbrella. She dares to step in and sees all the pastries - the fantastic beasts - curated in the store, and sees the bits of the store that are Queenie; the apple strudel, the lattice crust of a cranberry pie, the pink powder dusting the strawberry tarts. Tina smiles to herself, remembering the four of them sitting at their table for two, Queenie making apple strudel and flirting with Jacob while her and Newt awkwardly looked on.

“Excuse me miss, can I help you?” a warm and melodic voice asks, and Tina feels her heart catch in her throat. She stares at her sister, who grins at her sweetly.  _ Oh, Queenie,  _ Tina thinks regretfully.

“Can’t, just looking, thanks,” she manages. A space in her chest pulses as if an old wound has been reopened. She leaves immediately after.

Yet Tina still returns every Saturday. Queenie begins finding things around the shop: a beautiful rose pink gown, a pretty pair of pearl earrings, a music box that feels unnaturally familiar. She collects them in her bottom drawer and tells Jacob about them before they go to bed.

* * *

 

Tina crosses her legs, uncomfortable in her dress. The tent smells of death and dirt; they couldn’t be more out of place. Jacob takes Queenie's hand and Tina knows: this is right. The bitter part of her scoffs,  _ How can she part with the sister that raised her? _ The other Tina is so moved by the beauty of the ceremony, she’s speechless. She wishes she could take a picture of Queenie in her white dress, transfigured from a nurse’s uniform, and Jacob in his neat looking tuxedo.

She examines his large, calloused hand wrap around her sister’s small, delicate one. “Make of our hands one hand, make of our hearts one heart, make of our vows one last vow: only death will part us now.” Queenie is so radiant, her eyes wet as she sings to him in response. They use the battered shirt they found Tina in to cover the glass. Queenie steps on the cup and the sound of shattering glass echoes through the tent.

“Mazel tov!” Tina cheers, nudging Newt to do the same. Tina doesn’t notice her own hand grasping Newt’s tightly, the whites of her knuckles betraying her apparent contentment.

He can’t bring himself to look at her as Jacob and Queenie kiss for the second time. Before they leave the tent, Tina embraces both of them. “I love you both, so, so much,” she starts, but the words are watery. “You are true, and brave, and I am so, I am…” Tina knows she’s shaking. Queenie’s comforting touch finds the small of her back.

“We could never forget you, Teenie,” she reassures her. The blonde looks at her meaningfully. “I could never forget you.” Theseus is waiting outside to escort the newlyweds to their next destination. Tina unclasps her locket and helps Queenie put it on.

“Mama would want you to have this,” Tina says before she kisses them goodbye. Newt holds her as she breaks down.

“I don’t…” he begins, not sure how to console her. She grasps his hand tightly and he brings it to his mouth. “I don’t think it would be possible, Miss Goldstein,” he whispers against the back of her hand, “For… for anyone to ever, ever forget you.”

* * *

Tina eats lunch with Graves every day her first year, before he’s instated as the Director of Magical Security, when he’s just come back, fresh from the Great War; he tells her to call him Percy. Percy shows her the wonders of New York City’s street food, hotdog vendors, and oddly enough, mustard. “You grew up here, Goldstein, and you never had a New York hotdog with mustard?” he asks her, personally offended.

“Raised Jewish, sir,” she explains. “Call me Tina.”

He rolls his eyes at her and laughs. “Kosher hotdogs exist, Tina,” he says, raising a speculative eyebrow. “Now, tell me you have a better alibi than that.” He hands her the hotdog in question authoritatively. “This is the moment that decides our entire friendship, just so you’re aware.”

She responds with an eyeroll of her own before biting into it curiously. She chews, swallows, and repeats until she’s done. “Well…” Tina shrugs. “I’ve had better.” He glares at her in response.

“Auror Goldstein,” he says sternly.

She shoves him playfully. “Director Percival Graves,” she returns.

Percy smiles at her widely and shakes his head, suddenly bashful. Tina feels something familiar and warm swell up in her chest. “Don’t jinx me, Tina!”

When Graves ( _ Grindelwald? _ , an older Tina reflects) fires her from her Auror position, she feels empty. “Oh Tina,” he says to her, but there’s no familiarity, no warmth. He reaches over to wipe yellow sauce off her upper lip. “You’ve lost that look.”

* * *

“I know you love him but - Queenie, please, can’t you just stick to our kind?”

“Our kind? What d’you mean our kind?” Queenie is absolutely livid, wand drawn. Tina figures she’d have hexed her if she weren’t bedridden and recovering. “Did you forget our grandma was a No-Maj?”

Tina feels her own temper rising. “Queenie Anne Goldstein, I’ve seen what they do to people for violating that damned statute, don’t you dare test me. It almost cost me my life,” she yells, half-pleading.

“Like you cared so much about the law when you were fooling around with Margaret at Ilvermorny or flirting with Graves when he was your superior!” Queenie yells back.

At this, Tina brandishes her own wand, furious. She knows she’s injured, but she could probably take Queenie in a duel in her sleep. Wordlessly, she disarms her sister, sending the beautiful wand flying across the room. She opens her mouth to say something, but nothing comes out - she’s too distraught. She suddenly becomes acutely aware of Newt and Theseus, who are still in the room and have been watching the entire spectacle.

“You regret it every day,” Queenie says now, quietly. “I still hear it in your thoughts.” Newt shifts uncomfortably in his chair.

Tina looks at her sister and sees the spark of total conviction. She reaches over and grabs her wrist, feeling very fatigued. 

(“Ma says it’s not right,” Margaret says, but Tina ducks between her thighs and tastes her anyway.)

(Percy buys her lunch. As they walk to MACUSA, their hands brush with every step. They both know it’ll be a scandal, but Tina decides that this is enough: an hour for lunch every weekday, the way he leans over her after her first mission as an auror, his grin when she makes arrest after arrest. “Tina,” he always greets her, in candid affection.)

(Margaret is crying. Tina pretends to sleep.)

(Graves feels different. Tina keeps her mouth shut.)

“Your love is your love,” Tina finally yields. Queenie is delighted and ushers Jacob into the room.

(Margaret is married.)

(Graves is dead.)

* * *

Dear Newt,

Thank you for your correspondence, that’s what I told your brother. To date, you’ve sent me two hundred letters. Your most recent forty sit in a chest below my bed unopened. How’s Leta Lestrange? I read the paper, you know. Seeing you on the front page, it felt like watching Queenie get Obliviated all over again. She chose him. You chose her.

You chose this.

That’s all right, Mr. Scamander. You’re a decent guy and old habits die hard. Throw a party, invite me to the wedding - do they have weddings in Azkaban? Either way, break a leg. Get it? … sorry, I’m pretty drunk. No, I’m very drunk. Happy birthday.

I am very tired of wanting you. With you – the sky is always falling. Why did I ever invest in this? In spite of everything, I hope you are content and blessed with good fortune. I don’t even think you know how much you meant to me. I wish the world for you. Isn’t that worth anything?

Queenie, when she was still Queenie, told me some spiel about you needing a giver, so I know why you left. What’s a giver with nothing left to give? Perfectly useless, like an empty glass. You empty me. Now, this empty glass is going to throw this letter in the fireplace. I almost threw your book in last week. I’m actually very sorry about that; me and any form of Firewhiskey is extremely dangerous. I like to think that I’m generally extremely dangerous. You like dangerous women, don’t you Mr. Scamander?

Best wishes to you and Leta,

Yours truly,

Tina

* * *

 

“Mama’s red lipstick.”

“Right.”

“Papa’s navy suit.”

“Correct.”

“My pink nightgown.”

“Me?”

“You.”

“You.”

“Me.”

“Teenie?”

“Queenie?”

“The noise is going away.”

…

“Thank you for being proud of me.”

“Well, you’re always making me proud.”

* * *

When the New Year comes in September, Tina wonders how she’ll celebrate: Queenie was the talented chef of the household, and without her, the dinner falls short. Tina settles for dipping even slices of red apple in honey, as if she could taste the autumns of her childhood, hear her father’s prayers, and stare into her mother’s eyes once more. Her heart clenches at a familiar memory: little Queenie baking challah with mama, Tina setting the table with papa, and her father jokingly offering her wine for kiddush. With her final slice, she stands, determined, putting on her coat and shoes in two swift movements. As she hears the heavy door slam behind her, she stumbles and uses her cane to steady herself.  _ What’s the use in seeking her out? _ Tina chastises herself once again, but she’s already down the stairs and outside the building (no easy feat). She laments her impulsive decision; after all, all that’s Queenie, the silvery wisps, is in a glass bottle above the kitchen sink. Tina doesn’t know what she’d been searching for or expecting when she’d left.

Tina heads for the docks, pausing to pick up pebbles as she goes on her way. At first, she wants to bring one pebble for every life she’s taken, one pebble for each transgression she made during the war, but her pocket becomes too heavy. It weighs her coat down awkwardly, ripping the fabric. She curses quietly. Tina decides to bring only two pebbles: one for Graves, one for Queenie. When she reaches the river, she sighs. She should have brought three; one for herself. She tucks a stray brown hair behind her ear before beginning to recite the prayer, frowning at the strands that are starting to grey. Tina throws the smaller pebble, the one for Graves, into the river first. It skips across the water twice before sinking, the comforting response to the apology she’s been repeating ever since they found him dead in a warehouse in Brooklyn. He’d been starved to death, and the markings on his body - well, Tina prefers not to think about it. She tries her hardest not to and tries her hardest to be as sorry as possible, for not knowing, and then for knowing and not having the courage to say anything about it. “Still have to work on that,” she mutters to herself.

Queenie’s pebble sinks into the river as soon as it touches the water, but that’s to be expected. There’s too much weighing it down; guilt, regret, doubt, and every single thought Tina’s ever shut Queenie out from. She wishes she could take it all back. She wishes she had fought harder. She wishes she died in that chair, by that potion that reflected her deepest desires; at least then she’d be happy. “I’m sorry,” Tina says out loud, but she doesn’t know whether she’s talking to the pebble, Queenie, the river, or herself. “I was afraid.”

Someone places a hand on her shoulder and she jumps at the sudden contact, reaching for her wand reflexively, but she’d left it at home.  _ If I die now, it’s okay - no one will search for me,  _ she reassures herself. She turns around to look at the perpetrator and finds herself staring into Newt Scamander’s curious - worried - eyes. “Forgive me, Miss Goldstein, I sent you a letter but - but well, you see, as you probably know, you’ve stopped replying, and…” Tina smiles at the way he stumbles over his words, like a toddler just learning to walk, and he stops mid-sentence. “I had to come,” he says sincerely, his hand not leaving her shoulder, steadying her, not unlike the cane at her side.

“Mr. Scamander,” she says shyly. “Have you got a rock?” In her head, Queenie giggles and rolls her eyes at the exchange.  _ You sure know how to talk to a man, Mrs. Grundy! _

His brow furrows at her unusual request before he reaches into his pocket and pulling out a glass marble the color of Queenie’s eyes when she’s about to cry. “Um, I don’t suppose this will do?” He offers it to her with his open palm, the sphere sitting perfectly in the middle. Feeling adventurous, she presses her palm firm against his as she takes the marble from him.  _ Thunderbird, caw caw! _ The Queenie in her head eggs her on as Newt’s cheeks turn red.

Tina throws the stone into the water and watches as it’s overtaken by the river. Somehow, she feels lighter now.  _ I’m sorry, _ her own voice says, but this time, she’s certain.

“I’m here,” she tells Newt. Tina grasps his hand again and hears her cane fall, crashing into the ground with a disturbing sound. “I’m here.”

* * *

Queenie struggles her first year at Ilvermorny. She almost fails Transfiguration and Potions her second semester, but with a little help from Tina, she’s able to at least pass. Seeing Queenie walk across that graduation stage is probably Tina’s proudest moment. She looks beautiful in her cranberry and blue robes, hair shining and pulled back in a low bun. Tina thinks of all they’ve strived for together, remembering Queenie’s noise-induced migraines that she managed to study through, how Queenie cried the first year after Tina’s graduation because she wasn’t used to being alone, the Howler she’d sent after Tina forgot to reply to her weekly letter. Tina looks at Queenie in her graduation gown and counts the hours she worked overtime at MACUSA, the Dragots she saved up every month, and every secondhand textbook she’s ever purchased for her. Some things, like mama used to say, are priceless.

In front of her, she recognizes one of Queenie’s old Pukwudgie friends that had graduated a year earlier chatting with a boy from Wampus she’d been on the dueling team with. “God knows how that charity case managed to finish,” the Wampus boy comments below his breath, and the Pukwudgie girl giggles.

“Oh, don’t you know? She did Professor Adams some  _ special favors _ to raise her grade in Defense Against the Dark Arts,” the girl states, matter of factly. 

“Why don’t you turn around and say that again?” Tina says calmly. The girl turns around, eyes widening in realization. Before she can throw a hex, the Wampus boy grabs her wand.

“This Goldstein’s no good without her wand,” he says smugly. Tina rolls her eyes as she pulls at the sleeves of her button-down.

“I don’t need a damn wand,” she sneers before jumping on the Pukwudgie girl.

Needless to say, she’s thrown out of the venue. Queenie finds her later outside, sitting in the grass barefoot, looking sheepish as she recounts the story. “It’s okay, though,” Tina comforts Queenie, who’s disappointed to discover that Tina has been banned from Ilvermorny indefinitely. “Your portrait came out nice,” she says, showing Queenie the pictures she’d picked up at the kiosk before the ceremony. The Queenie in the photograph blows them a kiss from the frame.

“Oh, Tina! You got blood on you, are you hurt?” Queenie observes, looking distastefully at the red stain on her white cotton shirt.

Tina grins at her and shrugs. “Not my blood,” she supplies offhandedly. Queenie gapes at her in disbelief. She takes her heels off and sits next to Tina, leaning her head on her shoulder.

“That’s my sister,” Queenie mutters, exasperated and amused all at once.

“Could have done better with my wand,” Tina proclaims darkly, smirking. Queenie lets out a weak chuckle at this. They sit in silence for a long time, watching pantone bleed into dark blue.

“Teenie?” Queenie says after some time in a voice that’s so small, Tina can barely register her question.

“Yeah?”

“Can we go home?”  _ Wherever that is, _ Tina thinks sarcastically. “Wherever that is,” Queenie repeats derisively.

Tina wraps her arm around her sister’s shoulders. “Sure thing, Queen,” she says. Neither of them make the effort to move.

* * *

Her name is Margaret. Tina knows her intimately, knows how her long fingers nervously drummed next to hers, how she held hers with the tips of her own in response. Tina knows how their legs brushed casually, how Margaret dipped her head tiredly in her direction, how she murmured into her ear, the empty promises and comfortable, light conversation. Tina knows the feeling of her thumb purposefully tracing the fading white scar on the back of her right hand, gently; Tina remembers their first kiss. She is hiding something in the corner of her mouth. She wants to love her, but can’t.

Loving her is in the absence of the moonlight, the glimpse of her shadow standing in the field mid-day, slim figure against the vast green, heavy footfalls rhythmically sounding to the beating of a heart of an enamored adolescent and her evasive sweetheart on the run. Less often, loving her is in the quiet morning, a sigh from her lips, and a subtle gust of air swaying her with every step she took; a shy smile and a friendly exchange, platonic, of course, but she is content to settle. She takes the greatest satisfaction in her smile, in the way the corners of her lips turned upwards, in the way she seems, if only for a moment, blithe, as if her perpetual presence had worn a hole in her crumbling conscience and had enveloped her in good graces and hopeful mutterings. 

She traces the evolution of her infatuation frequently, the simple story of how her impersonal acquaintance had, with the aid of her imagination, morphed into something alien, an overzealous longing for her company; and then, settled, tucked away into the corner of her mind, a kind of dull aching and vaguely painful awareness. She is ashamed of herself. Among the things she notices about her include: the faint rolling of her r’s, the bare skin of her back on a hot summer day, and the arresting scent of vanilla perfume.

(“Oh Teenie,” Queenie would coo, “You’re so poetic when you’re in love.”)

Her sixth year consists of many things: studying, of course, applying to MACUSA for auror training, and sneaking around in cupboards, classrooms, and the common room while they thought no one was watching. On a spring day, they sit in the fields with a picnic basket full of food they’d stolen from the kitchens before curfew the night before. They lay on their backs, staring at the sky until Margaret brings the picnic sheet above them. “Maggie,” Tina giggles.

The wind sighs through the baby blue sheet covering them. Margaret, beautiful Margaret with her straw-colored hair and green eyes, blows in Tina’s ear. “I love you,” she lazily whispers, and Tina feels the heat rise to her face. She breathes in the scent of languid, hazy spring afternoons eating strawberries, studying Herbology, and playing house. Smiling gently, Tina shifts to her side to kiss Margaret on the nose. The blonde sneezes in response and Tina laughs. Margaret kisses her cheek, soft lips trailing down Tina’s porcelain neck, leaving red marks in their wake.

“Ma says it’s not right,” Margaret says, but lets Tina taste her anyway.

Margaret returns from summer vacation with an engagement ring on her ring finger. Their seventh year, they don’t speak, but Tina can sometimes hear Maggie’s cries from above her in the dorms, her sorrows.  _ I miss you too, _ she wants to say, but Tina’s always been stubborn and too proud for her own good, so she lets Maggie marry whatever pure-blooded prince her mother sold her off to. They meet many years later in a No-Maj restaurant and Tina walks over, makes small talk, and plays with her daughter. Margaret grins at her and she feels her heart skip a beat.

As she leaves, Tina remembers again.

(“It’s a perversion of nature,” Margaret sneers as she watches Alice and Rosa hold hands. She gives Tina a hard glance. “Despicable, don’t you know?”)

Tina imagines that Leta is Newt’s Maggie, but she let go of her Maggie years ago when she left Ilvermorny and joined the forces. _When I grew up,_ she corrects. But she understands, or thinks she might, when she sees the way he looks at Leta’s photograph, when she sees the way his face is stricken reading those defaming newspaper titles: _Lestrange Family joins Grindelwald’s forces, Youngest Lestrange appointed as Lieutenant, Leta Lestrange leads massacre of Muggle villages_. She looks at him while he reads and he responds by giving her a weak smile, which is more of a painful grimace. Tina wants to take all of him in her arms and hold him until he’s sure he won’t break, but she doesn’t. She places one hand on the side of his face and tells him, “It’s okay to forget.”

* * *

 

Dear Miss Goldstein,

I’m not sure what compelled me to write this letter, considering you have abandoned replying to me some months ago, but I feel there is something between us, some unspoken  _ thing _ that we must pursue. Forgive me if I am being too forward, but I’ll be arriving by steamboat sometime in September if you are willing to take this chance. I must confess that I miss you quite terribly, Tina. I wasn’t aware how tremendous a gap you’d create when you left back for the States. I hope that I am not alone in my sentiment.

Yours,

Newt

* * *

 

She stares at the ceiling of her tent, drenched in cold sweat. The medics tell her she may never walk properly again, but that’s the least of her worries. She worries she may never feel properly again, or feel anything again for that matter. Tina concerns herself only with the dust particles floating in the air - she can’t do much else. She can’t talk, she can’t move, she can only stay awake for brief moments before falling back into sleep, sleep terrors and nightmares full of green light and electrifying pain.

She’s sure her skin is grey. She is so, so tired. Newt sits dutifully at her bedside everyday, waiting for her to utter her first words. He reads to her from the book he gave Tina years ago before their first kiss. He is kind and gentle mostly, but one day he snaps in frustration. “Didn’t you promise me you’d stay safe?” Newt demands. She can’t answer, she tries. She supposes she hasn’t been safe since the death cell. She’s still stuck in that metal chair, gazing at the good on the surface. 

Tina focuses and manages to tap the knuckle of his right index finger. He blinks at her. “You’re almost there, aren’t you?” 

The key word is almost. Tina thinks, in that moment, she feels her soul split in two: one part with the breeze on a spring day in April, the other with the mark of a curse that almost tore her to pieces. She looks at Newt and she can  _ almost _ reach into the green fields of her childhood and collect the other half of her soul before it’s too late. There’s only a subtle difference between the green of her childhood and the green of death, but there is a difference nonetheless. 

Newt feeds her when the medic loses her patience. He falls asleep in the chair next to her bed. He wakes up to her screams and calms her terrors. He holds her wrists still as she thrashes in her cot. He washes her hair when Queenie can’t bring herself to visit, the painful memories of torture and interrogation too loud in her head.

“It’s gotten so long,” he remarks one night, massaging the suds into her scalp. The upper corners of her lips perk up. Newt sees and beams at her. “A smile!” he exclaims, pouring warm water to rinse before drying her dark locks. Something in her chest moves. When Newt looks at her again, a single tear is running down her cheek.

“There’s no need to be brave,” he tells her. Unashamed, she hears her heart thump wildly in her chest.  _ All I ever wanted, all I want is always you, it’s always you. _

(“You’re so poetic when you’re in love.”)

It’s Theseus that Tina speaks to first. 

“The war’s never really over for us, is it?”

* * *

 

“When’s a good time to stop being alone?” she asks Newt towards the end of the holiday, helping him pack the remainder of his belongings before he heads to MACUSA to travel back home.

Newt looks at her straight in the eyes with something that’s not quite longing. “Now, I suppose,” he replies, not breaking eye contact. His eyes remind her of Margaret sometimes, the green hills of Ilvermorny, the gold of her hair, the gold of Queenie’s hair, but not the green of the curse that killed her squadron - never that shade of green.

It’s too draining to live in the shell of their old life, so Tina sells the apartment and leaves with Newt when he returns to England. Their wedding ceremony takes place in the five minutes before they catch their portkey at MACUSA headquarters, as quick and simple as two  _ I do’s _ and signatures to go along with them. “I could never be without you,” he tells her. “I want us to be more than a memory,” he continues, brushing his fingers against her forehead. She looks at him and feels 25 again, standing at the docks and asking about Leta Lestrange.

She smiles tearfully.

* * *

She looks at her sister and Tina sees, beneath her mask of poise and confidence, the trembling three year old she held in her arms wondering what death was. “Teenie,” she whispers as she looks at the ocean, “What now?”

Tina squeezes her hand once. “You’re going to get on that boat, and I’m going to follow you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading probably the only story that contains both West Side Story and Mitski lyrics. Let me know your thoughts.


End file.
